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Nothing like a little rivalry to spice things up

Ok...Let’s start this off by congratulating Kenai Golf Course and their Walker Cup team for such a convincing and thorough butt kicking this past Sunday during the singles matches. We deserved it. The Kenai team turned a close competition into a runaway victory and made it look awfully easy with some great play from all their players. I was impressed with a couple new additions to their team, Jack Darsey and Gilbert Arellano played some great golf over the weekend and that certainly helped their determined effort to win back the cup. As an opponent you always know what you’re going to get from Gordon Griffen, Doug Jung, John Dahlgren, Todd Eskelin and the rest of the guys over there. Steady play, they won’t make many mistakes and they’re going to force you to beat them. Rarely will they give holes or matches away. In years past we have been able to do a little better job of putting pressure on them to perform, but this year we didn’t have the players top to bottom to do that and it showed. We’ll have to do a much better job of fielding a team next year if we want to win the cup back on our own course, because right now the two teams don’t stack up. They’re better than us. I miss playing in the Walker Cup, I really do, but as a “captain”, which is a very loose term in this event, I still hate losing just the same. Losing sucks. That’s all there is to it. Now I’m not condoning throwing a temper tantrum if you get beat, but it’s ok if it sticks in your craw a little. A reality of golf is you’re going to lose a hell of a lot more often than you’ll win, that’s tournament golf. As great as Tiger Woods is he’s lost far more tournaments than he’s won. Unfortunately a lot of these matches weren’t competitive. We can all sit here and say politically correct things like, “t he matches were great”, or “everyone played well”, or my personal favorite, “as long as everyone has fun the result doesn’t matter”. That last one nearly makes me puke. What’s the fun of that? If it doesn’t matter we should just cancel the thing and all go out for tea and talk about flowers. It matters, and because it matters the Walker Cup has turned into the best event on the peninsula. I’m sure most of the players from both courses would agree with that. Now let’s touch on this contentious vibe between the two courses. I love it. I think it’s great. A little animosity will go a long ways towards making things interesting. I’m sure I’m in the minority on this one, or at least one of the few willing to say it, but that’s how I feel. I don’t know if it’s because we grew up playing sports against each other in middle and high school (or in some cases had kids that played) and those old rivalries have stuck, but beating Kenai has always been a really enjoyable thing to do. It’s not like us golfers are going out to the bars getting in fights with each other all the time. We’re not the Hatfield and McCoy’s, but it’s OK to have a little rivalry. That doesn’t mean our golf courses couldn’t work together better, we could, and we should, and in time I’m confident we will, but I don’t think we need to be out there giving each other hugs and kisses either.Again, congratulations to Kenai Golf Course. You guys played wonderfully all week. It was an impressive performance.Senior LeagueNine extremely well aged men rolled into town for some spirited senior league action. Captain Cohoe, Ray Hamby represented my neighborhood well posting a net 30 to take low net. John “The Last DJ” Davis was runnin’ down a dream as he knocked his ball within 13’ of the cup at the sixth for closest to. Davis also captured closest to honors at the eighth with another wonderful shot within 28’ of the pin. Gordon “Slicker Than Crisco” Briscoe greased up his ball before sliding it in the cup from 20” inches away to win the long putt on nine. Has a longer putt ever been made? Way to roll in a bomb Gordon!Tuesday Morning Ladies LeagueThe scintillatingly sexy ladies of Birch Ridge were back on the runway to show off their new golf attire again this week. There were no winners this week as every team tied! It would have been great if the ladies had held an arm wrestling competition to settle the matter, but apparently they decided against it. Beth “Heartbreaker” Roseberry took fewer putts than anyone other lady to win an incredible prize.Tuesday Couples NightThe sun was shining on the love birds for another night of steamy couple on couple golfing action. The game this week made the men earn their way into the bedroom with solid play or else it was another night on the couch! Couples used five net scores from the men and just four from the women. Dave Keating defended Sharon’s honor playing some great golf en route to a first place couples finish. Vic “The Stick” Hussey teamed with the lovely Carol to place second.If you’re madly in love with someone and would like to join the rest of the couples we would love to have you out on Tuesday nights at 6:00 pm. It’s great time that is enjoyable for players of all skill levels. There’s always food and drinks after play concludes and the couples change games to make it fun and interesting. Come on out and join the fun.Golf Joke of the WeekBill and his wife Sally died and went to Heaven together. They were met at the gates by an angel that said, “Right over here, we have our very own golf course!” “Wow! It’s beautiful! Can we play it now?” they both asked. “Sure!” said the angel. It was the most beautiful course they had ever seen. Everything was perfect... the fairways, the greens, even the roughs. The more they played the more the woman beamed with happiness, but she noticed her husband was becoming disheartened and angry. Sally confronted her husband on what was wrong. She said, “I can’t understand why you’re not happy. We’re in Heaven! We’re together! We’re playing on the most beautiful and perfect golf course ever! What’s wrong with you?” Bill replied, “Now you’re going to want to join me every time I play golf...Are you sure this is Heaven?”